


Une affaire de livres.

by Hedge_witch



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Books, Gen, No you don't understand THEY are the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedge_witch/pseuds/Hedge_witch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes, revolutionaries as books, need I say that this is not serious in the least?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Une affaire de livres.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oubliance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oubliance/gifts).



> After making a throwaway comment in an email I now find myself, one week later, with over a thousand words of silliness depicting our favourite revolutionaries as books. I find this rather difficult to explain, even to myself.

“I am slanted again damn it all.”

 

Danton sighed, “we had noticed that Fabre, it happens to us all sometimes.”

 

“It never happens to you, you great doorstop, you’re nice and secure at the end of the shelf, while I’m having to lurch against _him,”_ Fabre managed to give the impression of glaring narrowly at his neighbour and unwelcome support, who responded by flicking his slightly too loose plastic jacket at him with an audible crack, disturbing a cloud of dust in the process. 

 

Camille coughed, his flyleaf fluttering, “could you not do that Marat, some of us are first editions. You‘d think they might have dusted the shelf while they were plundering our ranks.” 

 

“Ah do I sense a little bitterness at not being one of the chosen?” Marat enquired, with delicate malice. 

 

Camille scoffed, “you’ll have to try harder than that I’m afraid, I’d consider being lumped on the display table along with Saint-Just a positive punishment. I don’t know who that new Library Assistant is but if she thinks that he deserves to be placed alongside Plath, Dostoevsky and Lucille then she’s in the wrong bloody job. 

 

“What is the rationale behind that selection?” Louise Robert wondered, “there’s no continuity of genre or subject matter. I mean, obviously Saint-Just is desperately trying to be _Notes From The Undeground_ so there’s a link there _,_ but then you’ve got _The Bell Jar_ and Lucille’s anthology on Mary Queen of Scots, which I suppose you could loosely connect if you referred to some of the themes, but it’s still all rather tenuous.” 

 

“I think you’re trying to be a little too rigorous Louise,” Camille said, “it looks like a general appeal to faux-disaffected youth, who are probably the right audience for Saint-Just, but who will either grossly misunderstand the others or give up after the first ten pages and then look the rest up on Wikipedia so they can pretend to have read the whole thing.” 

 

“If so, that explains why you’re not there,” Danton remarked, “the amount of classical allusions you pack in, they probably wouldn’t get past page three. Oh, hang on, it looks like the target market is closing in.” 

 

With some shuffling and rustling, they all turned their attention to the table in the foyer, its contents being examined by a pallid girl, nervously playing with the ends of her hair and occupying a rather flamboyant red velvet jacket with palpable unease. Her hand hovered over the table uncertainly before eventually descending on the dove-grey Persephone Press cover that encased Lucille’s poetry, seizing it and clutching it to her chest as she scuttled over to the modern fiction. 

 

“Oh bravo!” Camille cried, “excellent choice, we’ll have to ask Lucille what she made of it when she returns.” 

 

“I’ll probably be out by then,” Danton observed, “the English students usually get asked to compare me and Hugo in the next couple of weeks and there are never enough copies in the University Library.” 

 

“Ah yes,” Camille said, “I’ve got until March, when the modernist literature unit starts, unless of course there’s a glut of postgrads working on classical reception or gender and sexualities. How far through do you reckon your undergrad will get this year, my dear?” 

 

“Well the last one managed to read about three quarters, which is better than usual, but the two-chapter digression on English manufacturing finally finished him off - no economic sense, and I recall that he drank Sainsbury’s Basics gin, so really, what can you expect?” 

 

“Oh,” Louise broke in, “I know that ominous squeak, it looks like the returns trolley is coming our way.” 

 

Spines shuffled closer to the shelf-edge as they peered down into the trolley, spotting a normally pristine pale green cover that now looked a little the worse for wear.

 

“Max,” Camille said, “you seem a little...compressed.”

 

Max gave a subdued cough as he was slotted back in next to Louise. “I have spent the night under a rather large cat...” He paused meaningfully while Danton quickly transformed his incipient chuckle into a clearing of his hinge, “the experience was rather unpleasant, I do not know why people leave books lying about on sofas, though thankfully, I was properly closed, otherwise my spine would have certainly cracked. As it is, I’m sure my endpapers are looking distinctly tatty by now.” 

 

“Oh a little bit of cracking on the spine is the sign of interesting content,” Danton remarked, “I notice that you’re still quite pristine Max.” 

 

“Oh thank god,” Fabre muttered, breaking the sudden tension along the shelf, as he was finally straightened to make room for Laclos, whose case cloth was visibly scuffed. 

 

“Oh Laclos,” Danton enquired, evidently in a mischievous mood, “you don’t appear to have enjoyed your trip out with the good Marquis.” 

 

Laclos rustled with indignation, “that volume ought to be restricted! He lolls about in the most obscene manner and I’m sure he has a malign influence on the readers. That woman tried to read me in the bath! I narrowly escaped being submerged and warped beyond repair, only to be menaced by her sodding scented candles! Honestly, that film adaptation is more trouble than it’s worth. Just you wait,” he addressed Danton, “the day the BBC finally get round to abridging the hell out of you for a Christmas miniseries you’ll find out how comfortable you’ve been.” 

 

“And where is de Sade?” Max interrupted with the air of someone who has glanced over at the scorpion tank to find it empty and the lid askew, “was he not returned with you?”

 

A palpable chill descended and Laclos was silent for some time before he finally bit out “as it happens, he was renewed, Robespierre.” 

 

Neither Danton nor Camille were able to contain their sniggers this time and Laclos appeared to be constructing a very sharp comment before conversation was stilled once more as a reader approached their little frequented corner of the library. 

 

“Good heavens, what is someone doing back here? Did he get lost on the way to crime fiction?” Danton wondered, but the man did not pause or veer off, approaching the Classics with an air of determination, the wan electric light reflecting off his glasses. 

 

“Oh this one means business,” Louise observed, “a little hard edged for me or Camille I think and, my apologies Danton, but he doesn’t look like he would have much time for excursions off-subject or some of your more...dramatic tropes. He could be after you Max, or perhaps...” She trailed off uneasily. 

 

Marat rustled his pages menacingly from the gloom at the back of the shelf, “just try it,” he hissed through his thin, yellowed pages, “I’ll break you. I always do.” 

 

Undaunted, the reader reached back and picked Marat up, blissfully unaware that, had the volume in question possessed teeth, he would have lost a couple of fingers by that point. Thus extracted, Marat was borne unceremoniously off towards the issuing desk, leaving a stunned silence in his wake. 

 

Danton whistled, his pages fluttering, “well, that’s a turn up, I think it’s been a year since anyone tried to tackle him.” 

 

“How long, do you think?” Camille enquired. 

 

“He looks the sort to keep him out for the full three weeks to save face,” Laclos observed, “as for how long he tries to read him for...I give him two hours, spread over a couple of days, before he gives it up as a bad job.” 

 

“I think you’re being over-generous Laclos,” Danton said, “I think a single hour will do it.” 

 

“Less than that even,” Camille remarked, “he made the last one _cry,_ he’s bound to want to escalate things further this time.” 

 

“Well,” Max said hopefully, “with both him and de Sade out, we should have quite a peaceful week.” 

 

“I wouldn’t count in it,” Fabre said dryly, “I think they’re dismantling the display and bringing Saint-Just back, with his wounded pride in tow, no doubt.”  

 

“Damn,” Max muttered as Camille lapsed into a silence that portended an especially sarcastic greeting, and the dust shivered, as though expecting that disturbances might ensue. 


End file.
